Monthly Archives: January 2018

I realise I’m a bit behind with this but I would just like to wish a Happy New Year to all our members and best wishes for a healthier year!

We had a lovely christmas meal at the beginning of December which marked a wonderful celebration to close our first year as North Kent ME and Fibro Family. We had a record turnout of 27 people! All squished round three tables with many laughs had and much food eaten!

For a second year in a row Sarah Ward surprised the committee with a huge donation of money that she had raised by doing another raffle for two beautiful Christmas hampers! This time she raised even more than last year with a grand total of £280! This fantastic news also meant that we had reached one of our targets which was to have £1000 in the group’s bank account by the end of year one!

At the start our second year there are a couple of changes. Katie will now be organising the group socials, the first of which is a trip to Playopolis Board Game Cafe in Rochester. Date TBC. If you have any ideas for socials please get in touch with Katie. Details of socials will be posted on the Socials section of the website and in greater detail in an event page on the Facebook group.

Sadly at the end of last year Emma Gapper stepped down as Secretary of the group and nominations are now open for her replacement. If you would like to put yourself forward for this role or would like some more information please message Jon. You can do this on facebook via the private message function or send an email to the address on this website’s Contact Us page.

In the interim period Nicky has done a fantastic job filling in and supporting Katie and Jon and we would just like to thank her for all her hard work.

The Royal Voluntary Service in Chatham has served us well as a venue for our group meetings over the past couple of years both for this group and the old group.

Unfortunately we have had the sad news that the centre will probably be closing after they have lost £35,000 funding from the council. Without this they will not be able to continue to run. Jon will keep us updated as to what’s going on at RVS but it is likely that they will be closing their doors at the end of March.

We are now looking for an alternative venue that meets the groups needs. This includes low fees to rent the room for two hours, disabled access, a meeting room with a table and chairs, a cafe selling hot and cold drinks. Nucleus Arts has been suggested to us and Jon is looking into this but if anyone else has any suggestions please comment on this post or on our Facebook Page.

We would like to thank all the staff and volunteers at RVS for everything they do and have everything crossed that there will be a way to avoid their closure.